Many casinos offer tournaments to attract players. One common tournament is a parallel slot tournament. In a typical parallel slot tournament, the casino designates certain slot gaming machines for play of the tournament. Casinos readily implement slot tournaments because it is relatively easy to track each player's play on the slot gaming machines and to determine the tournament winner(s). In many slot tournaments, the players play as fast as possible to try to win the most credits in a limited time period. In many parallel slot tournaments, players do not view the tournament play of other players. The gaming system automatically calculates the number of credits that each player wins during the slot tournament.
Another known type of tournament is a sequential casino-style table game tournament. In a sequential type of tournament, players take turns placing their respective wagers. This round-robin betting enables players who bet later to potentially take advantage of the knowledge of bets placed by earlier players. The order of player betting may change for each game of the tournament.
It is more difficult for a casino to implement certain types of casino-style table tournaments such as a craps tournament or a roulette tournament due to a variety of factors. One factor is that the game rules for tournament play are usually more complex than for standard play. Another factor is that the game has to be monitored by human dealers which are subject to make mistakes. For example, mistakes are more likely to occur as the tournament progresses and bet limits increase because the number of chips that a dealer must typically handle becomes very large. The larger number of chips can be time consuming for the dealer to count and distribute and more likely to result in mistakes in counting and distributing the chips. Another factor is that the large bankrolls of the players become more difficult and time consuming to count and publicize after each game or after each round of the tournament. Another difficulty with casino-style tournaments is that managing a tournament's bet limit and the orders in which players bet are relatively complex tasks and may be prone to error when completed by one or more dealers during a tournament. These difficulties sometimes require additional dealer training and additional deals which adds significant costs to running such tournaments. A further challenge is that large gaming tables and large numbers of gaming tables cause greater physical disbursement across the casino floor making central communication more difficult.
Certain types of sequential casino-style tournaments can also be more difficult for players to play. Typically, the players are each given a designated color of chips. When it is a player's turn to wager, the player must try to determine what the other players wagered by viewing which chips are wagered on the table. It can be difficult for a wagering player to track other players' previous wagers to determine what to wager. That is, the large numbers of chips also make it more difficult for players to track the wagering of the other players.
In certain casino-style tournaments, the players may make secret wagers. When it is time for a player to wager, if the player has a secret wager opportunity, this player can write down their type and amount of their wager instead of doing so publicly. The details of any secret wagers are only revealed after all players have completed their wagering for the given game or alternately, after the outcome of the game is finalized. The other players therefore see that the player is making an extra wager, but the amount of the wager and what the wager is on is secret from the other players. It is difficult to hide the act of making a secret wager. A player may benefit by making a secret wager by preventing subsequent players from potentially being able to take advantage of the knowledge of the specifics of the secret wager. Typically, in a game with secret betting, each player will have the ability to exercise one secret bet during each round of play.
Accordingly, there is for casino-style tournament systems which reduce or eliminate the above problems or drawbacks.